A step for an escalator has become known from the specification DE 3605284 A. The step comprises a tread element with a plurality of horizontally extending strips and a riser element with a plurality of vertically extending strips. The strips of the tread element mesh with the strips of the riser element of the adjacent step, wherein the step width is dependent on the relative position of the adjacent steps.
A step of the kind stated in the introduction is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,876 B. see, particularly FIGS. 5 and 6. Weight savings and considerable cost savings are possible with the skeleton-like sheet metal construction of the step.
A step executes a relative movement to the adjacent steps in vertical direction, particularly in the transition from the inclined escalator section to the horizontal escalator section. The step structure of the escalator is in that case transferred into a planar structure or band structure. The height difference between two adjacent steps then changes continuously from the maximum value to zero. The relative movement is produced by an appropriate course of the guide tracks for the step rollers and chain rollers. The step has—in section in travel direction—an approximately triangular cross-section. In order to keep the gap between two steps small, however, the riser element is constructed not to be flat, but as a cylinder wall section, thus arcuate in cross-section, so that the step in section in travel direction has the form of a sector of a circle rather than that of a triangle.